Finger, who lives on the outskirts of Greenwood Village, doesn't draw a paycheck for maintaining a household and raising two children ages 7 and 2.

But if he were paid what he was worth as a stay-at-home dad, he'd make $128,755 a year, according to Salary.com, a Waltham, Mass.-based provider of compensation management systems.

Salary.com surveyed more than 6,500 dads to determine the top 10 functions of their jobs, which came down to day-care teacher, computer operator, general maintenance worker, cook, van driver, facilities manager, psychologist, CEO, groundskeeper and laundry machine operator. It then ascribed market value to those functions.

"The bulk of the money is coming from overtime," explained Bill Coleman of Salary.com. "The base pay rate is $51,000 a year."

"Well, then pay me," Finger said when I mentioned this study. "That would be enough to keep us in the house."

Whatever parenting is worth, somebody has to stay home and raise the kids. Or stick them in day care, where somebody else raises them. Finger's wife is an information technology professional at a mortgage company. She makes the money. He raises the kids. It's a good deal.

"I really do like it," Finger said. "It just gets boring after a while, because it's kids and kids and kids. I get excited about going to the park and talking to adults while the kids play." But he also spends summer days at his condo in the mountains.

The U.S. Census Bureau counted only 159,000 stay-at-home dads in 2006. These are married fathers with children younger than 15 who have been out of the workforce for more than a year while their wives work. Other tallies, which include stay-at-home dads who work out of the house, go as high as 2 million.

Most men aren't standing in line to become stay-at-home dads, not even for a few weeks. In a recent survey by Melville, N.Y.-based staffing firm Adecco USA, 59 percent of fathers said they would not even take paid paternity leave, fearing harm to their careers or pocketbooks.

By contrast, the Census Bureau counted 5.6 million stay-at-home moms in 2006. Salary.com puts their value at $138,095, nearly $10,000 more than dads'.

That's because mothers typically assume a disproportionate share of the housework, even if they have full-time jobs. Also, the average stay-at-home dad reported working 80.2 hours per week, compared with 91.8 hours for the moms.

"Moms are more organized," Finger concedes. "So they can do two or three things at once. They don't just hold the baby, but have the baby on their arm while they are doing the laundry."

I think most men fail to see hidden opportunities in being a stay-at-home dad. As I researched this column, a friend complained of a stay-home-dad who hangs out with his wife and kids all day, enjoying his home, eating his food and drinking his beer, while he's at work.

Children with stay-at-home dads are lucky. A nonprofit group called the National Fatherhood Initiative estimates that 24 million of the nation's children, or 34 percent, live without any involvement with their biological fathers. Other tallies show most high school dropouts and teen suicides coming from fatherless homes.

Joe Swenson, 49, of Boulder went to Princeton and has a law degree from the University of Colorado. But he's been a stay-at-home dad for a decade, while his wife works as a tax planner.

When he goes to class reunions at Princeton, his former classmates brag of big jobs on Wall Street. But he talks about teaching his kids to ski and coaching their sports teams. "My friends look back on their lives with regrets because they missed those years," he said.

Swenson said he's also gotten in as many as 100 rounds of golf in a year.

His son is now 11 and his daughter is 10, but he's still on the job.

"I knew when I got out of college that I wanted to be a dad, and I wanted to be a great dad, and if that's what's on my tombstone, that will make me so proud."

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